The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris co-sponsored several conferences and workshops on global value chains that involve Duke GVC Center researchers, as well as commissioning a number of research reports. To date, this research has focused primarily on improving the participation of developing countries in regional and global value chains, through skills upgrading, a sector-specific approach to improving local institutional framework for competitiveness as well as how to structure policies to optimise value capture in Africa.